Social Bite pledges £3m for homeless initiative
● Money raised from Sleep in the Park to go towards rapid rehousing
The co-founder of a leading social enterprise has pledged £3 million of the money raised from Sleep in the Park to a Housing First initiative which aims to move homeless people into their own flats.
Josh Littlejohn made the announcement ahead of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s first visit to Edinburgh next Tuesday, where they are scheduled to visit the Social Bite café premises in Rose Street.
The prince and his fiancée will be in the capital to help celebrate the Scottish Yerar of Young People 2018 during a day of engagements.
Mr Littlejohn said the money raised from Sleep in the Park, which saw thousands of people brave freezing temperatures to sleep overnight in Princes Street Gardens in December, would go towards providing support to immediately
0 Josh Littlejohn with a prototype house for Scotland’s first Social Bite village, planned for Edinburgh house homeless people in their own accommodation.
Former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher, Deacon Blue, Amy Macdonald and Frightened Rabbit provide music at the event before comedy leg- end John Cleese read everyone a bedtime story.
Mr Littlejohn also described the visit of Prince Harry and Ms Markle as a “great opportunity” to highlight homelessness. He said: “Their office got in touch and asked if they could visit, so for us it’s a great opportunity to talk about this work and it keeps the momentum going on the issue of homelessness and the wellevidenced solutions.
“Hopefully we can use the media profile of the visit to propel that work.
“I believe they’re going to be in the shop for 30 minutes, so we’re going to have the opportunity to fully engage with them about these plans. Obviously they’re people who have a high degree of influence, so hopefully that further pushes the momentum on how we deal with homelessness.”
Mr Littlejohn said that the Housing First campaign was recognised globally and by academics as the best solution to addressing the issue of homelessness, and money would be distributed in Edinburgh and Glasgow, with talks planned to extend the proposal to other cities.
He added: “The current system is costly to society, in terms of funding the temporary accommodation and it also costs police time in terms of people being in and out of prison, it costs as they’re in and out of the NHS, so there’s all kinds of costs associated with the current homeless system.
“The homelessness sector and the academic evidence base suggest we work towards a system where the default response is when someone becomes homeless we should rapidly rehouse them.”